Dances of the Heart

by Andrea Downing

  Paige breathed in deeply, ready to make some sardonic comment about cowboy philosophy, but found she couldn’t. He was studying her, ready for the riposte, waiting, but she suddenly found she couldn’t hurt him, or even try.

  “How…how did you get over Robbie?” she asked quietly.

  “I didn’t. You never get over the loss of a child. And you’ll never get over the loss of your loved one. But time, while it doesn’t heal everything like they say, it does make the pain less. A little less—a miniscule less—each day, until one day you realize it’s nothing more than a niggle, the creak in your back when you first get up in the morning. You expect it, you know it’s there, but you’ve learned to live with it, deal with it to an extent. You come to realize you know they’re gone and they’re not coming back. You stop wondering what he’ll say when you tell him such and such, and then finally you stop expecting to tell him anything at all.”

  She took a sip of her champagne, thinking this through, wanting the pain to go away, just go away. “But you drank. You were drinking, when we met you. Only a short time ago. You weren’t over Robbie. It wasn’t just a niggle.”

  Ray flexed his toe into the water and tiny rings eddied out. “Well. I think the drinking had become a habit, an addiction, Paige. It no longer needed an excuse. I was in the habit of coming in after work and starting up. You know, Jake left for the army just a year after Robbie passed, my wife and I were arguing non-stop, there was no longer any glue to hold us together. My whole world seemed to be falling apart. I suppose loving your mama has helped.” He turned to her and smiled. “I promise you, your fiancé would want you to go on with your life, and it’ll soon be clear to you what you’re meant to do.”

  “I don’t know…I don’t know if it will. We had such plans. We planned our lives together…”

  “I know you did. But he would want you to go on, Paige, you know that. He would want you to meet someone else you can love, want you to go back to school and become that unbeatable lawyer you’re meant to be, do all those things y’all planned. He wouldn’t want you to be mourning him forever.”

  The pain shot through her, but now it was mixed with something else. A resolve. She sipped again at her glass as music started after a lull. Paige sat listening for a moment, then said, “You know, I think you’re probably the best thing that’s ever happened to my mother?”

  “No, Paige, I’m not. You are, sweetheart. Believe me, you are.”

  “Soooo,” said her mom, towering over them, heels cast aside. “My two favorite people…”

  “Mother, I think you’re somewhat tipsy!” She sent a conspiratorial glance toward Ray. “How much champagne have you had?”

  “Not enough, not nearly enough.” She lowered herself carefully behind Ray and hugged him, letting her head rest against his shoulder.

  He reached around and gently ran his hand down her jaw, awkwardly trying to see her face.

  A shot of jealousy suddenly flamed through that new resolve in Paige, flaring up anger for her loss. The unfairness of it, the loneliness as she studied her mother as the one now part of a couple. The course her life had taken enraged her now and, without knowing why, she directed her spleen at the man who had helped her gain her new resolution. “What was your wife like?” she asked, almost spitting out the question.

  The two stared at her. There was tension on her mother’s face, but Ray obviously tried to make light of it. “Well, she was very different from your mama, I’ll tell you that. But then, I was a whole lot younger when I met and married her. And it actually was a shotgun wedding.”

  “Are you making excuses?” the lawyer in Paige cross-examined.

  “No, of course not. I’m explaining. We change as we grow older. We mature, our tastes change, the way we see the world. Some people grow together, others not.”

  “Well,” she said as she swung her legs one at a time out of the pool and shook them to get rid of water. “You’re quite the philosopher, aren’t you, Ray?”

  “Paige…” her mother protested.

  Paige put a hand on Ray’s shoulder as she slipped on her shoes before bending over to do the straps. As she straightened, her gaze met her mother’s and slight remorse began to replace the anger.

  Carrie nodded slightly in acknowledgement of that change before she rubbed her cheek against his back and he reached again to pat her face.

  “I wish I’d met you thirty years ago,” her mother sighed.

  “If you had, you wouldn’t be the woman I love, the woman you are today. You wouldn’t have Paige.” He glanced up at Paige once more with a smile that said, ‘no hard feelings.’ “I wouldn’t have Jake. You can’t look back, Carrie—we have a future. The past just doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Paige watched for a moment and finished her glass. She knew she had been rude, knew it was unreasonable to be jealous of her mother, wrong to deny her mother any happiness now. She returned Ray’s smile, aware he had been right. Nothing was going to bring back Steven, and Steven wouldn’t want her squandering her time. She needed to get on with her life and let her mother get on with hers.

  Ray patted her mom’s shoulder once more. “We gonna dance or what? I’ve been waiting all night, Miz Bennett.”

  He got his socks and boots back on and the couple went off holding hands. Her mother smiled and waved as she went by guests and Ray led her to the dance floor. As if the band knew what was required, they started playing a George Strait ballad.

  Diana sidled up to Paige, watching the couple for a moment with her. “What the hell is that they’re dancing? It’s like something out of the nineteenth century. Or, no, a bad western—that’s it. Your mother and her country music, for heaven’s sake. They’re the only couple on the floor. What is it?”

  The anger in Paige completely receded, replaced by humor at the scene her mother presented. She laughed, then swiped another champagne off a passing tray. “It’s the Texas Two Step, Diana. And it’ll be sweeping the Hamptons before long!”

  Chapter Eight

  “I tried calling you yesterday, but you didn’t pick up. I guess you were still traveling.” Jake’s voice had a slightly worried tone to it.

  Ray pressed his cell phone to his ear and shuffled to sit up in bed. If his son could see him, still in bed at 10 a.m., he’d have a good laugh. Especially if he saw him in this bed.

  He put his head back against one of the millions of pillows and peered up into the intricately pleated fabric of the bed crown, suddenly realizing Carrie wasn’t there. “Yeah,” he croaked out, “I had a bit more traveling than I bargained for.”

  There was a slight pause before Jake said, “Did I wake you, Dad? You sound sort of groggy. You haven’t been drinking again, have you?”

  “No, no, not at all. We had a real late night here last night. A party. And after all that traveling and what have you…” His voice trailed off while the desire for coffee hit him.

  “Yeah. Did Paige give you my message? That I called?”

  “Yeah.” Ray waited a moment, then said, “Look, I’m real sorry, I feel real guilty about leaving you for July Fourth just when you’re back, but—” He played with the sheets, rumpling them in his palm as he thought again about leaving Jake behind. It hadn’t been fair to do that to his son.

  “It doesn’t matter, Dad. Really. I went on over to Toby’s place. His family had a barbecue. But I’m sorry I didn’t go along to see Paige—in a way. How is she?”

  Ray tried to spy around the edge of the curtains to see if Carrie was there, but couldn’t see anything. “Oh, she’s fine. She and I had a good chat last night. She’s fine, Jake. Maybe you ought to give her a call.”

  “I did. Well, yeah, maybe I’ll phone her again, but I don’t think that’s goin’ anywhere, Dad.” There was a pause before he asked, “Did she say she was goin’ back to school? To law school?”

  “No, we didn’t discuss that.” His head was clearing, and he kept thinking there was something in his son’s voice not quite right. “
Are you okay?” he asked at last.

  “Sure. Listen, I think I need to get the vet out for Snowflake. She’s off her feed. Is that all right with you?”

  “Yeah, of course. If you think so. Jake, is everything else okay? Have you thought about going back to college?”

  “Dad! Maybe next semester. Not September. Not now, it’s too soon. I have to think whether it’s the right move, you know. I’m twenty-seven now. Those college kids are so much younger and all. And can I really learn anything more about taking over the ranch, do you think? We’ll discuss it when you get home. Okay?”

  Ray drew in a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Listen, I better go. Haven’t had breakfast and don’t want to miss my chow. You know me.”

  “Haven’t had breakfast? At—what time is it there?—like ten or something? What kind of a life do those people lead?” His son would have a smirk on his face.

  “Well, it was July Fourth...”

  Jake grunted at the excuse, then waited a minute. “Dad?”

  “Yeah, son?”

  “You have a good time there, ya hear? Don’t hurry home on my account. Okay?”

  There was a moment before he guffawed. “I’ll be home late Sunday, Jake. It’s fine.”

  Ten minutes later, Ray emerged from the bathroom, having put on his boxers, and slid open the door to the balcony. He leaned against the doorframe.

  Carrie sat at her computer, either oblivious to his presence or ignoring it altogether.

  “Well, this is quite a view,” he began when she said nothing.

  There was no response for several moments filled with the tapping of her fingers on the computer keyboard. “Yes,” she finally got out. “I like the ocean.” And then, as an afterthought, she added, “And good morning to you, too.”

  He smiled. “Oh, it wasn’t the ocean I was admiring. You sittin’ there an’ all, it does a man’s heart good.” As the tapping continued, he asked, “How long you been there, Carrie?”

  “No idea. I’m afraid my brain can’t stop working.” Her fingers, however, stopped and she met his gaze. “Sometimes, I’m afraid, I just get up in the night with an idea. One night, I remember, I got up seven times. It’s part of the job, Ray, the unsleeping brain.” She tapped a few more sentences into the computer. “How about you? Did you sleep all right?”

  “Like a baby.” She sat typing there for a moment before he said, “So, you lead a literary littoral life, huh?”

  “Literal life?” Carrie’s nose scrunched in misunderstanding.

  He laughed. “L-i-t-t-o-r-a-l.”

  “Ah!” Her face brightened with a big smile. “You’re very clever. Or at least very alliterative.”

  “Or even…” Ray searched for a word.

  Carrie raised her eyebrows at him, her face expectant.

  The lack of food and the desire for something more no doubt affected his brain and he gave up. “Never mind. I can’t keep that going. So, what’s on the agenda for today? Anything special?”

  Her gaze went back for several moments to scan what she had written before she glanced back. “I think getting you swim trunks is pretty high on the agenda. What do you think, handsome?” She clicked once with her mouse and then closed the cover of her laptop.

  “I think you can decide on anything you like for your toy boy, sweetheart.”

  “My ‘toy boy?’” Carrie queried.

  “Yeah. I did a search on you on line before I came out and discovered you are a year older than I am. So, that makes me your toy boy, doesn’t it?” He wondered if she saw the twinkle in his eyes, but Carrie paled at this bit of news.

  “I’m older than you?” she gasped.

  “Oh, Carrie,” Ray shook his head in dismay at what might be considered his faux pas. “We’re not going to fret over this, are we? One year?”

  She put a hand across her mouth, studying him for a long, hard minute. “I don’t know. I don’t think you should have told me.” Her eyes went wide as she considered this.

  He bit his lip, her sensitivity to her age both tantalizing and maddening. He decided the best way to deal with it was to ignore it.

  “I’m hungry as hell and wantin’ to make love to the prettiest gal in all of the Hamptons,” he told her at last.

  “Jeez, you’re not going to have a go at my daughter now, are you?” she countered.

  “Carrie Bennett, you have some strange ideas. Have you ever showered with a Texan, lady?”

  Her hand came away and she smiled. “I bet that is about the best damn shower anyone can imagine.”

  He let his smile widen at his success in distracting her as he extended his hand. “There’s a bit of Texas Two-step in it, a bit of spa massage, and a bit of Fourth of July fireworks.”

  She got up slowly from her chair and locked gazes with him. “And a bit of Playboy Porn?” she offered.

  That was a turn-up for the books. Ray smiled to himself at the new woman he had helped create. “Well, I don’t like to mention that.” But he certainly looked forward to it.

  “But surely,” she said as she scraped her chair back from the balcony table, “That’s the very best bit of all?”

  ****

  Jake loved Mulligan’s. Especially on a Saturday night. It was the sort of roadside bar that appeared in small towns all over the West—a wooden shack with a gas station out front. To one side of a large room it had a small shop where items for the passing trade could be bought—water, soft drinks, candy on the counter and an ice cream chest—and to the other side there was a long wooden bar for the locals. The lighting was negligible, service was, at times, on an honor system to which the regulars adhered, and the bar stocked what its patrons wanted, namely Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, beer and tequila, with a few bottles of cheap local wine for the ladies. When the gas station closed down at 7pm in the evening, the forecourt became a parking lot for pickup trucks. Music, always country of course, blared out from an old juke box in the corner, which had a habit of breaking down and leaving the customers to sing—usually out of tune or off-key—to finish the song. Neither the bar nor the gas station took credit cards, which meant, with no one at the pumps, the client had to come inside to pay. Only once did Mulligan’s lose money because of this, and the license plate had been out of state. In other words, Mulligan’s was a congenial place for the locals to have a few drinks and catch up in a friendly atmosphere.

  Jake navigated his way up to the bar and elbowed in between two other regulars who nodded to him before turning back to their conversations.

  “Hey, how ya doin’?” called Mike Mulligan, extending his hand for a welcome shake. “Long time and all that.”

  “Yeah, Mike. Last few times I was in, you weren’t here. How’ve you been?” He leaned on the bar as the cares of the day were left behind.

  “Fine, good.” The owner signaled to someone at the other end, who was shouting his name, and pointed to the bottles, watching for a moment as the man went round the back of the bar and helped himself. “So, what’s your poison tonight? Jim or Jack?”

  “The usual, Jack and Coke—”

  “Make that two,” said a recognizable voice behind him.

  Jake tensed and twisted back slowly to look into the snake-like grin of Ty Sheldon. “What the hell are you doing here? Why don’t you crawl back under whatever rock you came from?”

  “Oh-hhh,” Ty drew out the single sound. “Now, is that any way to be speakin’ to your brother’s very best friend?”

  “Get lost.”

  The drinks came, and he steadfastly kept his back to Ty.

  “I think we need to have a little conference there, Jake. You know, you did so well doing me that little favor last time I just—”

  “Forget it!” His voice came so loud, several people halted their conversations to see what was happening, surprised at the sudden intrusion into their quiet drinking.

  Ty leaned in, reaching past him for his drink from the bar, but staying in close so Jake could hear him clearly.

  “You b
etter listen, Jake, I mean it. Unless you want your father’s glowing picture of Robbie the hero destroyed forever. You know what—”

  “I know I’m gonna bust your face if you don’t move away, Ty. I’m sorting things with my dad. I’m going to tell him ’bout Robbie, so you can just push off.” Would he believe that? Would he let go?

  “You gonna tell him ’bout Lucinda, too?”

  Jake’s back stiffened. He had his hand out for his glass, but it hovered there, unable to grasp the drink. “What about Lucinda?”

  “You know Lucinda’s married? Finally got hitched early this year. No kids as yet of course…You think her husband knows?”

  Jake’s fist came flying into Ty’s face with a suddenness and strength that sent the wrangler flying. Crashing into some other patrons who were standing nearby, he landed on his butt as drinks got splattered and glasses shattered before the bystanders could back out of the picture.

  Ty dabbed at his nose and came away with blood as Mike called out, “Hey, hey, hey! Take it outside, the two of you! Out!”

  Jake reached back for his glass and downed his drink. Slamming it on the bar, he headed to the door past his prone opponent as some others helped Ty to his feet and checked him over. As he glanced back for a last look, Sheldon shook them off and reeled to the door, almost tripping out after him.

  “You better hang on, soldier boy,” he called. “I don’t think your dad is gonna like it none too well if I press charges now. I got lots of witnesses in there.”

  “No one’s gonna pay any attention to you, you damn crook.” He swiped at some drops of rain that had begun to fall, feeding his anger like water to a thirsty man.

  Coming up to him, Ty wiped away blood with a bandana he had stuffed in his pocket. “One last time, Jakie,” he sneered. “Come on now, you did so well with that army uniform and all. It’s a cinch. And I leave you and your daddy alone. Plus, of course, the added bonus Lucinda’s new found family don’t hear anything about her none-too glorious past. By the way, does your dad know about Robbie’s part in that? I wonder…” The tone was a seductive mockery, like a wild cat circling in for the kill, beautiful to watch but deadly.